Taro T

Well, 1st off, meant to put a "?" in the parenthesis after the "only," so thanks for catching that. But why even say "only?" Well, because would say Samuelsson is pretty much a two-way guy so far this season. When not paired with Dahlin, he's been doing a very effective job the past few games of jumping up into the rush. Wouldn't consider Kesselring to be a defensive D-man either based on what we've seen so far, though he may turn into one.

Why wouldn't they? Samuelsson gives Dahlin some help down low when out with the Thompson line as Kulich doesn't give much help there. Timmons is their best (only?) purely defensive defenseman at this point and Power tends to play better when he's out there with him. Kesselring has only had 1 RS game under Ruff's system and, except for a couple of major brainfarts (a breakaway that Byram and Lyon rendered pretty harmless being the biggest of those) played well on the 3rd pairing and having Byram ready to jump up into the play seemed to help the 4th line really keep pressure in the other team's end. Were Norris available (yeah, right) or McLeod bumped up to Thompson's line might be inclined to go with the pairings that were most expected heading into camp (Byram-Dahlin, Power-Kesselring, and Samuelsson-Timmons); but when looking at the down low units as a 3 man unit rather than just 2; actually like the logic of having a presumably defensively responsible guy on each pair and an offensive guy on each pair.

My concern is that they threw away 3 games when they were getting great goaltending because they weren't ready to go out of the gate. (And they threw 1 other point away because they get no injury luck at all and in response to that put UPL in a game he wasn't ready for.) They SHOULD have 14-16 points right now, which would give them a very small cushion to get past the inevitable midseason slump or 2. IF Thompson, Tuch, and Dahlin start playing they way they've been able to in the past and the rest of the crew does what they've been doing this year, they can handle slipping to average goaltending. But right now, those 3 aren't what they should be and that combined with the PP being hot garbage once again, has them just off the pace they need with pretty much everything else except injury luck hitting on all cylinders. ANY of that other stuff falls off without the "big 3" picking their full games up and we're looking at 0.500 being tough to maintain much less getting to 0.600. Am still hopeful (which after the 1st 3 games is something) but not overly optimistic. They will have lulls where they only get 3 out of 10 points (give or take); will they be able to have a couple/few stretches where they get 8 or even 10 out of 10 to counteract them? One thing to be optimistic about is, even though this team isn't much better at cycling than they've been in forever, they are going to the net MUCH better than they did either of the past 2 sesaons and probably even longer than that. THAT will generate goals even while the guys that create their bread and butter rush offense refigure it out. They've also been reasonably good at winning battles (though they still have stretches like the 1st 15 minutes yesterday when they aren't); so maybe between those 2 items they can figure out how to effectively cycle the puck which would also help.

Interesting thought. That likely plays a role, who wants to deal with that kind of abuse day in and day out just to stay close to the game they love. (Sheepishly raises hand; would've been cool to be a professional in just about any aspect of the sport.)

Make it easy on themselves, win tomorrow in Beantown and then go 3-1-0 the rest of this 5 game segment and they're right where they need to be. Tonight, Byram played great, Timmons played great overall, Doan was still very good, and the 4th line was completely bought in to doing its job. Quinn was going to the areas he needs to and was generating chances because of that. Lyon didn't steal as many as he had been doing, though he did steal several early and at least twice in the 3rd BJ's had thought they'd scored but hadn't. Benson couldn't connect on a pass to save his life through much of the game but at least he was still working hard and winning battles. Dahlin had perhaps his worst game under the current and past head coach. Couldn't make a pass, lost battles, got out of position. Thompson was bad. Tuch couldn't make a pass. Zucker insisted on passing when he should've shot and shooting when he should've passed. And even with all that going on, and Power having a couple of major gaffes ruining an overall good effort, and with the refs only calling 1 penalty that wasn't associated with a fight/scrum and of all the things they let go deciding THAT was a penalty (and don't know 39's name, but the Sabres get him a LOT and he's awful), they still managed to get a point and really should've had 2 in regulation. They couldn't have had that many key players being off their game and still get points in a long time. Hopefully they ALL show up on Thursday. Speaking of the refs, 39's partner watched Timmons and a BJ beat the crap out of each other in front of the Sabres net for about 10 seconds and then working their way out of the zone including some REALLY viscious cross checks and slashes and called nothing. Very shortly after that, Tuch and the BJ are shouldering for position, the BJ loses an edge and an arm goes up. Initially thought it was a linesman calling it an icing because neither Tuch nor the BJ had clear positioning over the other when close to the dot. Had to do a double take to realize it was 39 blowing another call.

As @PromoTheRobot mentioned, they were on sale in the Sabres Store as well. But by shortly after 4PM, at the absolute latest, all they had remaining for sale were XXL's. Another cool thought poorly executed.

Rewatch, if you have a strong stomach, the 1st 15 minutes of the game. If you honestly believe UPL would've come out of that stretch only down 1-0, would like to have a discussion about a bridge that's available for reasonable payments. UPL wouldn't have stopped the 1st shot high to the glove, nor would he have survived the entire 3 shot flurry a bit later in the period. Plus the 1st goal against, that's 3-0 at a minimum. Down 3-0 to start, the Sabres don't come away with even the loser point. Personally, thought he should've been able to keep the 2nd goal out of the net. Yeah, he's getting screened, but if his stick is on the ice, that doesn't get through the 5-hole. After the turnover leading to the 1st goal, he didn't have much of a chance at all. Nothing he can do about a deflection from 3' out of the paint without a ton of luck. And can't fault him for a backdoor tip in off a puck coming from where it started either. That last one, Power has to get to the guy's stick sooner than he does.

You do realize of course that were Worthy a Bill he'd be used almost exclusively for Jet Sweeps and WR Screens. Curtis Samuel and Elijah Moore are both very quick. Neither is used to stretch the field at all. Maybe they were saving those routes for this week now that the "tough" part of the schedule is coming up; but won't expect it until we actually see them run deep routes.

They need to avoid THREE straight losses. They did it once and have nearly overcome that. They can't repeatedly do it. The game tomorrow in Beantown is huge. Need to win that in regulation. No UPL please.

FTFY. And, yes, both Dallas and Calgary will say they won that trade.

Good for him. He's a very good player. Hoping in the long run the Sabres ended up with 2 very good players in their own, though significantly different, right.

It seems likel it's going to become a thing. And agree that it's a cool idea. Would prefer they'd do it on a winter's Saturday or Sunday. Whenever they choose their "national day of hockey" to be. They could spread the games out over the entire day; you'd still have significant overlap of games but with 10-12 hours of staggered start times rather than just 5 or so could get closer to 45 minutes between starts which would give people an opportunity to watch pretty much a period of every game without having to watch anything on delay if they wanted to do so. (Which ESPN and Rogers would hate as they wouldn't have the broadcast rights to all those games.)

Wonder if the band's name might've hosed them in much the same way the Payola$ had issues getting radio play in the States at the height of the payola scandal in the record industry.

The 2 goals he was responsible for at the time the post was made for 1 thing. What does Ruff and management have against them? They're the ones that sent your boy back to the A.

Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum

That's quite possible. But they were practicing Metsa with Byram. Kesselring was working on the 4th pairing with Bryson.

No idea. But it seems a fairly common practice under Ruff. Guys coming back from injury seem to get a lighter workout than those that have been healthy even when the plan is to play them in the next game. Could be as simple as letting the coaches make sure that they're getting worked into the rotation no more than the pitch count they'd decided for that guy.

How much more actual practice time would he get playing Saturday rather than Tuesday? They presumably have a real practice today. Tomorrow they have a morning game day skate. Wednesday they travel (or do they fly out late Tuesday after the BJ game?). Thursday game day morning skate. Friday - travel (see Wednesday's comment). Saturday game day morning skate. Suppose that could get him more back into the rhythm; but it won't really gain him much practice time. Would much rather they wait a couple of weeks to get him back inbetween the pipes; though that's likely a pipedream.

iF they are bound and determined to give UPL one of the next 3 starts (personally not completely convinced of that), they have to give him C-Bus. That is going to be the easiest of the 3 tests (when crowds are factored in along with talent of opponent). Friendly confines; no Ovechkin. Am hoping for Lyon - Ellis - Lyon with the B's game being a tossup between riding Lyon all week and giving Ellis the other start he's earned.

Wow. Would've guessed all of the others combined were a smidge less than his contract. Because even Lyon is well under $2MM/year.

Helps explain why they were the league laughing stock pre-AFL merger.

If you saw someone on the street wearing just the shirt, you'd wonder which EPL soccer team they were a fan of.

So, he had the stats to go along with the eye test that he was causing them trouble. 🍺

Is the question what we'd do or what we expect Adams to do? Expect Adams will roll with the 3 headed monster for a month or 2; but doubt that Ruff gives either of the 2 backups much work. Hopefully Ellis gets more of it than UPL but don't have a good feel for which one will get the bulk of the ones Lyon doesn't get. Personally, would keep UPL on the big squad as the 3rd goalie until he either gets back to form and then would give him A game to see where he's at or until they have to risk putting a guy they don't want to lose through waivers as guys come back from IR at which point he'd get waived to Ra-cha-cha because honestly don't see anyone trading for him with his current deal and would be shocked if anyone made a claim on him. (Presuming you need to punt him to not risk losing somebody else on the 23 man roster after IRs start to get healthy) Let him split time with Levi or backup Levi in Ra-cha-cha until/ unless Ellis shows he's not ready to be the backup on the big team. Should that occur, reevaluate. Should UPL play too well to stay in Ra-cha-cha, then try shopping him again when he might have some value. And in ANY case, get him a sports psychologist or a life coach or whatever you want to call someone to help him get out of his own head on the ice. You've got too much money invested in him to just let him waste away, or even worse, to torpedo another season showing some potential because you don't want to just waste the money by not playing him.

Hoecht seemed disruptive though not sure he had much in the way of personal stats. Never noticed the other guy. But Eddie O, until he broke again, Bosa, and Epinesa all were getting the personal stats. Expect Hoecht was a big part of that.